>> Chicago residents will cast ballots for who they want to be.

Mayor in less than a year and the pool of candidates is already getting crowded lawyer and former Chicago Housing Authority Board chair Matt Brewer recently threw his hat in the ring, running on a pro business and affordability focused campaign Brewer is a South side native who co-owns the iconic winner's circle and the city's first independent black owned cannabis dispensary and he joins us now.

Matt Brewer, welcome in.

Congrats running for the big job.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

So you have a diverse background.

As we mentioned, you hold degrees from Stanford, Yale Law and Harvard business.

You co-own the city's only black owned cannabis dispensary as well as winners circle.

Of course, there's experience on the CJ Board.

How does all of that experience informed the kind of leader you'd like to be?

It's a great question.

>> right now, Chicago is pivotal turning point.

The next mayor will step into a seat that no other mayor stepped into where we have a fully elected school board for the first time ever.

Less control over direct control over transportation with the shifts and the board.

We have a fully empowered and Independence City Council.

That's past budgets around instead of with the mayor and all these agencies like CHP and others who become a lot more independent as well, fractured relationships and city council fractured relationships in Springfield.

The next mayor can't step in and put all those uni's back in the bottle.

We have a new day of governance, a new day of leadership.

And we now need a mayor for this particular moment who can wear lots of different hats, speak different languages to different people to bring everyone together around a shared vision and everything you just mentioned, lawyer, entrepreneur or small business owner government nonprofit or the has that I where I think prepare me for this new phase of leadership in our city.

You've never held elected office amongst, you know, all of that experience that we just talked about.

Why should the voters believe that you're prepared to manage?

You know what, the largest city governments in the country?

>> I announced about 2 weeks ago.

The most the single thing that hurt the most was people excited and energized by someone stepping into this race who doesn't represent politics as usual.

And so I I view it as an asset rather than a liability.

But that said, I do.

It's been the last year my life running the housing authority.

It's a 1.4 billion dollar budget 135,000 residents in our city.

And it's very connected to our city operates in terms of housing, transportation safety.

And so I like to say, I come from the outside, but I have knowledge of the inside.

And so I'm not walking in trying to figure out how to turn the lights on.

>> You spent years leading the as we said of you ended up, of course, having, you know, fairly public dispute with the mayor this past year and he ultimately demoted you from Ch a chair after the board voted to hire, keep Pettigrew as its CEO over the mayor's injections.

Setting that aside, though, we hear a lot about housing and housing affordability in the city of Chicago.

How come the city ease restrictions making housing more affordable for people here?

>> It's a great question.

We have an affordability crisis in the city as a whole and it especially home with respect to affordable housing housing is at the intersection of everything.

As I mentioned, it touches public touches transportation.

It touches on economic mobility, meaning can someone born here have an opportunity to get outside pocket and get more access and more opportunity.

And so part of the answer to that question is it starts with City Hall vision at City Hall on the 5th floor that coordinates with that coordinates with DPD, the Department of Housing that coordinates with public and private partnerships to look at all the land we have in our city and there's an opportunity to increase affordable housing market rate housing and a bunch of other community assets.

They all have to work together be done in a way that's considerate of of transportation and public safety and all the other factors.

>> Mayor Johnson has had a strained relationship with Chicago businesses as of late because of his proposed corporate head tax, which the city council rejected.

He championed the phase out of the tipped minimum wage.

Controversial move because we know there was some back and forth and you said that, quote, We can be a city that's affordable to live and a great place to do business.

How can Chicago become more business friendly city?

>> In fact, we have to be a city that is both more affordable and from your for businesses.

The way I talk about it is we have to move Chicago forward without leaving people behind and on the move Chicago for peace.

We're talking about growth.

We're talking about bringing new businesses, creating new jobs, jobs for the future.

A place where businesses can operate grow.

Attract new businesses, a place where people want to live work and play, which also requires public safety.

But on that, not leaving, people behind peas were talking about education and workforce development and pathways for everyone to participate in the Chicago so that we can all move forward together and also on the side of not people behind are some of the issues we talked about before the fundamentals, affordable housing, transportation.

You can't both out and so.

When we create a Chicago that generates more revenue, can address a lot of issues that that we struggle within our budget right now.

And we rise that high for everyone.

It's not a community or business.

The answer is both.

>> So just yesterday, Mayor Johnson announce that the city is heading into the 2nd half of the year with 130 million dollar budget shortfall because the revenue that was expected from this budget that he did not approve.

He says it has not materialized.

Does that mean that city council should have implemented his ideas that we discussed corporate head tax, for example?

>> The 130 million dollar hole.

That was this close.

Yesterday's disappointing just under doubles down on this point.

I'm making that we need a coordinated, serious plan to generate long-term sustainable revenue.

Even a lot of the fixes are Sources of revenue that they were expecting for that 130 million or one-time fixes that would result in long-term sustainable.

We need to bring in more businesses, more people increase our tax base.

And by doing that, we generate more revenue over time.

We can't tax our way out of it.

We can't cut our way out of it with your existing people and businesses.

We need to grow to that point.

You know, how do you attract those businesses, right?

How do you how does the city balance its books without alienating businesses?

We've seen it done before.

>> We create an environment where businesses can operate.

And a lot of this is threading a needle needle.

There's no magic wand that makes it happen immediately.

But it starts with partnership.

It starts with relationships.

It starts with credibility with those communities and you have around you you have a round table of people who are all giving the best and brightest ideas and we implement some of them, some of them really to taxes.

Some of them relate to other incentive.

Some of the money to partnerships and some of them relate to getting creative in thinking outside the box about new revenue streams, public safety.

Of course, it is a high of big concern for a lot of voters.

What would your approach violent crime and public safety?

It's important and it comes at a time where where anticipating are current superintendent stepping down in less than 2 weeks?

week, in fact, next week and it's it's a multi multifaceted approach.

Obviously prevention you get the highest return on investment from prevention, interventions important and then enforcement partnership and credibility are important.

More than just the numbers.

We need a place where people feel safe and you go into south and west side pockets.

People still don't feel safe.

Going to the Gold Coast or neighbors on the Northside.

People still don't feel safe.

Regardless of what we see in the numbers.

And so we need world where people feel safe and you can actually start to address some of the root causes became 10 seconds left.

You decline to share your political leaning so far.

Moderate progressive Socialist But the funny thing is I'm not politician.

I'm a person love Chicago and a professional.

And so I don't fit neatly into the political boxes and I'm not running to do that.

I'm running to improve Chicago.

And so if I if I have to, I want to bring people along for the ride.

That means they can't love